


Because I Want To Do Something Worse

by seasalt (lawboy)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Dismemberment, Eye Trauma, Gen, Mild Blood, Mutilation, Tooth Pulling, Torture, Whump, some of this stuff is more present than others but im being careful n tagging as much as i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22841797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawboy/pseuds/seasalt
Summary: Zircon reforms after the trial, alone in a dark room. Scared and unsure of her fate, her mind can only take her down the most nightmarish path.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Because I Want To Do Something Worse

Zircon unfolded from her gem, gangle of arms and legs sheathed in uniform— alive. For an instant she was in her last moment, _before,_ cowering in a ball on the floor too paralysed to scream. No death came. No Diamonds. Unfurling shakily, hands rigor-mortis gripped in her hair and skin slick with icy sweat, she stared at the black nothing she was swallowed in. She was alone, untouched for now— it'd be worse than she thought.

She knew the second those treasonous words had slipped through her lips that there'd be repercussions. Thought, when Yellow Diamond crushed her into smoke, that she'd be shattered. Ground underfoot while she was out, while she couldn't feel.

But she was alive, probably in holding, and she knew what came next. Had seen it millennia ago with her first loss, a dopey good-natured Ruby who'd been accused of insurrection. Everything they'd had against her was circumstantial— a wrong word here and a slip-up there —but the evidence looked good piled up and Zircon was still too new and unadjusted to break it down. When the trial ended, she was sent along with the guards to see her client's punishment. It was a customary practice for Zircons: it instilled the fear of the court's wrath in them young, so that they didn't grow too slack.

She'd never shaken what she'd seen that day. It was torture, beyond comprehension— when she'd tried to talk about it with her colleagues the words had clogged her throat and set her breath paceless, burning, ragged until it stole her capacity to think and she fell against some surface, world rotating around her, hands on cold skin clammy over blacked-out eyes and wiping tears and waving at the thing that wasn't there, anymore, that she couldn't show to anyone as long as she malfunctioned like this.

Now it'd happen to her. Trial-less. They'd chop her up piece by piece with a knife as delicate and small as a finger-nail, little lumps vanishing with a pain that crawled on you. It was meant to be slow, but if they got bored, sloppy, they might 'accidentally' lop a finger off. They'd laugh when you flinched, or cried out, or when you bit back tears and looked at them bravely. They'd laugh even if you didn't feel it at all.

When that little reaction wasn't enough to sate them they'd progress. There went a hand into nothing, and now you'd scream, writhe like a piece of ribbon in a slipstream. Face torn by a warzone of wrinkles where your lips pulled away from your gums, where your eyes squeezed shut to hide your own dismemberment from yourself. When the next hand went you might manage a plea, voice broken and gentle. Appeasing would get you nowhere, and maybe they'd slash you and watch you bleed. Maybe they'd cut out your tongue to shut you up, or throw you on the floor and beat you until you were blind. Maybe you'd retract now, if you were weak— or wise. But maybe your bitter little spirit would hold on some more, as it just got worse.

The guards were happy to go off-script; they weren't being watched. As they tore out your teeth and hair and bruised every visible inch of skin, they'd joke about what else they'd do if they could. Things even worse, somehow, than what you were suffering. Chemical burns, molten metal down your throat, dry ice in the pierced pupils of your eyes— they were at least creative. Maybe you'd draw entertainment from it when you grew too delirious to comprehend it all.

Eventually you wouldn't be able to take it anymore. You'd retract— what was left of you —and your gem would clatter to the floor— still just as intact as when you'd walked in. That was the beauty of it, the sick depraved mastery of it all: it never ended. They'd put you through the same torment day after day after day and no matter how broken they left you, no matter how much they defiled your wretched body, they'd never lay a scratch on your gem. Day. After day. After day. It'd never stop. They would never let you die.

And now it'd happen to her, and those words in her head left her retching, limbs losing all solidity and pitching her bodily to the ground. They'd tear her apart. A million deaths, a trillion. Death without dying, for eternity.

The lights came on and she screamed, enough to shred the lining of her throat. She couldn't look as they approached her— no doubt smiling, knives clenched between meaty fingers, eager roving eyes searching for where to start hacking. No, she wouldn't look at them. They'd never get the pleasure of seeing their reflections in her eyes.

"Hey, it's okay!"

That wasn't a guard. That voice-

Zircon drew her head out from the envelopment of her arms, brought her gaze up to meet the face of Rose Quartz. Shivering, taste of iron on her teeth, she slowly pushed herself upright. She was drenched in sweat, clothes clinging, palms damp, sharp bite of salt on her tongue when she darted the tip of it over her lips.

Rose knelt in front of her, concern drawing her brow tight. Her hands hovered at shoulder level, open and empty.

"It's okay. We're on Earth. The Diamonds don't know we're here."

**Author's Note:**

> let me know if there’s any tags i should add or if the rating’s wrong!


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